


I would take a whisper if that's all you had to give

by patchwork_daydreams (orphan_account)



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-13
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-14 21:44:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8029927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/patchwork_daydreams
Summary: "So you're letting me have your leftovers?" he spits furiously - everything about him is fire and rage these days. "You're giving me permission? How kind of you, Captain America.""No Sam, that's not what I meant," Steve looks distraught - good. "I - shit, look, me and Bucky was a mistake. The biggest mistake. And I was selfish and unfair to you, and I really think that you and Bucky have a chance."Sam wishes he was a bigger person, but he's not, he's still angry. And he can't let himself have this hope, he can't think it might be true or it will rip him apart. So he lashes out instead, throwing his hurt at Steve."I don't need your charity!" he hisses, turning and stalking away before he changes his mind and caves in.This is everything he's hoped and dreamed of, but now that the moment is here, he is too afraid to follow it through.





	1. Tsunami Tides in my Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Before you start to read this, I just want to apologise for making Steve so mean. I love him dearly but it suits my plot for him to be awful!  
> I'll try to post the chapters as quickly as possible so you're not kept waiting too long, and please do let me know what you think :)
> 
> Title is from Echo by Jason Walker and each chapter's title comes from the lyrics of different songs. The full playlist is here https://play.spotify.com/user/becka_musicfiend/playlist/1ACtcwrRHbi5p06gZj5CpB .... ooh 4D fanfiction experience right here! (give me a shout if it doesn't work!)

**New York, June 2018**

It’s a horribly sticky day in New York and the city is stuffed with somehow even more people than normal. Aren’t people supposed to _leave_ the city in June, not flock to it like brainless birds on a backwards migration? Sam strides across the Brooklyn Bridge, pushing past meandering tourists and swearing under his breath. Fucking hell, if it weren’t for the skyscrapers in the distance and all the people, you could be forgiven for thinking you were in Wakanda, it’s that hot and humid.

All along the bridge, people are stopping to enjoy the view and take photos. Sam barely even sees the view anymore. He’s been back in New York for nine months now, and already he’s become used to its grandeur. Now it’s just one more hassle, something to grumble about internally as he fights through the traffic – vehicular and pedestrian – every morning to get to the VA office.

He’s running so badly late and he’s at the point of almost losing his temper when his phone buzzes in his pocket. He swipes the call button and holds it to his ear.

“Hey,” says Natasha. “I have news. You dashed out the door too quick for me to tell you this morning; Steve and Bucky are coming back to New York. Bucky finally got permission to enter the country again.”

Sam stops dead, feeling like he’s been sucker punched. The crowd of tourists flows around him as he stands there, with his carefully constructed life threatening to fall down again like a clumsily constructed house of cards.

“Sam? Are you there?” Natasha sounds worried. “Sam?”

“I- ” Sam turns slowly, finally taking in the view of the East River, the water drifting lazily downstream. God, Bucky would have loved this view. “I’m here,” he says finally.

“They’re not coming back til next week, so that will give you a bit of time,” Natasha says. “Are you…. look, you don’t have to do this on your own. I know this is going to be hard.”

He nearly yells at her then; how can she possibly know how hard this is going to be? How can she have any clue? She wasn’t in Wakanda, she wasn’t crushed into a thousand pieces by the combined actions of the two guys who meant the most to him. Fuck, how can anyone understand how much that hurt?

“Give me a break, Nat,” he snaps, knowing he’s going to regret being a dick later. “I’m over it. Who cares if they’re back.”

“Sam-” Natasha says reproachfully. “I get it, I really do, but don’t push us aw-”

“I’ll be back late,” he cuts across her. “Don’t stress. See you later.”

He ends the call quickly, already feeling the wobble in his voice. Shit. God-fucking-dammit. He’s just got his life back on track, just stopped losing it every time someone mentions Steve’s name, and now they’re coming back to New York? What kind of bad karma bullshit is this?

 

 ~~~

 

The VA office is stifling in this weather. Sam’s office is a tiny box with south facing windows, so he gets the full brunt of the burning ball of hate better known as the sun. It’s a slow day, which is bad enough on an average day, but is an extra slice of hell on a day like today. He flings his bag into the chair by the window and slumps down in his office chair, firing up the computer and opening up his emails.

“Hey man,” Clint pops his head round the door, holding two steaming mugs. “Didja sleep in?”

Sam shoots a scowl at the man, wondering as ever, how Clint is always so chipper in the mornings.

He returned to his job at the VA to find that Clint had taken up a part time role with disabled vets - everyone’s got their own theories about the origin of Clint’s hearing loss, but Sam suspects it has something to do with his military beginnings - and whilst initially he didn’t like sharing this part of his life with any of the other Avengers, he’s grown to enjoy the Wednesdays and Fridays that Clint pops into his office for a mid-morning coffee.

“Something like that,” he concedes, not ready to go into a full exposition of his inability to sleep through the night. “Traffic was shit too though. So many goddamn tourists.”

“I hear you,” Clint nods, throwing himself into the seat in front of Sam’s desk and passing one mug over. “Summer-ing in the Hamptons is a thing no more.”

Sam shrugs, taking a sip of coffee, and eyeing Clint suspiciously. He’s trying to decide whether this is the usual morning coffee break or whether Clint is here because of his phonecall with Natasha. His computer makes a series of rapid pings as emails flood into his inbox, and Clint sets his mug down onto the desk and fixes Sam with a look. Goddammit.

“So, Nat called me. If I ask how you’re coping are you going to bitch me out too?”

He really should know better than to be rude to a former assassin and spy, particularly when he lives in the same building as her and works with her boyfriend, also a spy.

“I was just a little thrown,” he tries to explain. “I’ll apologise when I get home.”

“And are you going to stick photos of Barnes and Cap to a punch bag and beat the living shit out of them?” Clint enquires, head cocked to one side. “Because I am more than okay with witnessing that drama fest.”

Huh. Good idea.

“Tempting, but I thought I might just repress it and drink ‘til I pass out,” Sam tells him sardonically. “Y’know, the responsible method of dealing.”

“Well hey, if you need a drinking buddy slash someone to carry you back home when you pass out, then just give me a call,” Clint says, downing the rest of his coffee. “Now I gotta bounce, got a meeting in five minutes. Just wanted to check you weren’t trying to drown yourself.”

“I appreciate it. But I’m fine, y’know, as fine as I will be.”

“I’ll see you later man,” Clint nods, jumping up again. “Just try not to piss off my girlfriend, I have literally no influence over her when she’s mad, and I won’t be able to stop her stabbing you.”

 

 ~~~

 

The girl behind the bar is eyeing him up, Sam can tell, even in his inebriated state. Once upon a time, he would have used that to his advantage, shooting her a sideways grin and turning on the famous Sam Wilson charm. He’d have waited til the end of her shift, flirting shamelessly as she kicked out the old drunk men one by one, and maybe they wouldn’t even have made it back to his flat before his hands were up her top and she was unbuckling his jeans.

But that version of Sam is long gone, chased away by the war, and falling in love for real. He’d always seen himself as a casual fling kinda guy, but the second he’d laid eyes on his blond and brash wingman he’d known it was all over. Riley was soft and romantic, underneath all those military tats and muscles, and all of a sudden Sam was completely head over heels. He would never need anyone else.

The girl behind the bar pushes another whiskey across the bar to him.

“On the house,” she says, smiling through long eyelashes.

It would be so easy, Sam thinks, to return that smile with a flirty comment, and fall back into his old ways. But he doesn’t have the heart to do it; his chest feels like it has a lead weight in it. The only thing he can think about is Bucky.

God, Bucky. Sam had never meant to fall in love with him. After Riley’s death, he swore there would be no one else; who else could hold a candle to what Riley had been? Despite what Natasha insisted, he’d not followed Steve out of some misguided crush. Rather, he’d thrown himself back into the fight so eagerly because honestly, life was still empty and lonely, the memory of Riley shadowing him at every turn. Leaping out of the Triskelion blind, half hoping the helicopter would catch him, half hoping it _wouldn’t_ – that was the most alive Sam had felt in months.

So of course he’d agreed to chase a mindwiped assassin halfway round the world, because what did D.C. hold for him anyway, except for an empty apartment and the bitter taste of loneliness?

He picks up the glass, eyeing it with a tired familiarity. He’s been here before so many times; drinking alone in a bar, waiting for the cool embrace of alcoholic oblivion to make him forget. But before, before Bucky, he never needed that oblivion as much as he does now. He knocks back the whiskey, welcoming the warm burn as it slides down his throat, and signalling for another.

He remembers now the apartment in Wakanda, the mountains a blue-grey smudge on the horizon behind the garden, the sound of rain on the roof and the overwhelming humidity following a storm. He remembers the colour of Bucky’s eyes as the sun slipped down the horizon, the upward tilt of his mouth when Sam told a joke, and the warmth of their bodies melting together. God, it’s like a knife in his ribs when he thinks of those fleeting good moments, and he curses Steve for ever getting him involved in this whole world at all. He curses Steve for inspiring him on a two-year chase around the world for the most beautiful and damaged man in the world. He curses Steve for letting him witness that brief moment of heaven touching earth, and most of all he curses Steve for taking it all away.

And as he looks up from his seventh or eighth whiskey, he sees the bar emptying and the girl eyeing him up, and he pulls out his phone to call Clint. The names swirl and wiggle and as his thumb skims past Bucky’s name in his contacts list and he hesitates, just long enough to consider pressing the call button. But no.

He throws down money on the bar, enough for another couple of whiskeys, and scrolls past to find Clint’s name.

“Hey bud,” Clint sounds sleepy and concerned. “Everything alright?”

Everything alright? Sam holds back a dazed snigger at what a stupid question that is, and drags his hand across his face exhaustedly.

“Come pick me up? I’m a lot of whiskeys down and I can’t feel my face anymore,” he tells Clint, trying to focus on the glass in front of him. “I might call him if I drink too much more.”

“I’ll be there in ten,” Clint says, sounding a lot more alert now. “Don’t drink the whole bar, okay?”

Sam ends the call and hazily tosses back the last two drinks in front of him, watching as the bar starts to spin even more and he starts to lose the edges of reality. If only, if only, if only.


	2. You Get Hurt, I'll Take Your Pain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve looks guilty and upset and cagey all at once, and Sam decides to just let him do his tortured thing. But Bucky needs someone right now, so he sighs and heads back into the lab, leaving Steve alone in the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I meant to post this way way earlier than today but I accidentally fell down the youtube rabbit hole and became a Phan (deep shame... although I totally think if Bucky and Sam had a youtube channel it would basically be Dan and Phil!)
> 
> Anyway, here is the next chapter! Title is from Soldier by Gavin DeGraw and here is the full playlist for the story: https://play.spotify.com/user/becka_musicfiend/playlist/1ACtcwrRHbi5p06gZj5CpB  
> Let me know if it doesn't work :)
> 
> As always comments are appreciated, you are all wonderful!

**Wakanda October 2016**

The first time Bucky comes out of cryo-freeze, Steve’s not there. He’s off in DC, making covert negotiations with Tony about the Accords. It’s been six months since they escaped from the Raft prison, and Tony’s only recently reached out to contact them, so Steve has practically leapt at the chance to repair that particular broken bridge. And Sam won’t mind staying to keep an eye on Bucky in the tube, will he? It’s not like he’s got anywhere else to be, right?

It's not a big deal – not really. Sam’s used to this; he’s been cleaning up Steve’s messes for well over a year now. You follow Captain America one too many times and you end up a wanted criminal, stuck in a foreign country and on designated freezer watch.

So when T’Challa comes to Sam and says he might have had a breakthrough and he needs to run some tests on Bucky, and do you think Steve would mind, Sam tells him it’s fine. He calls Steve to tell him, almost taking pleasure in the fact that Steve sounds distressed and torn at not being there.

Steve tells him to apologise to Bucky for not being there, and to _please_ be careful with him. As if Sam hasn’t spent a year tracking Bucky across the world, learning his habits and quirks, in order to find him. At this point, Sam probably knows Bucky Barnes better than Steve. Well, at least, the post-Winter Soldier Barnes.

Bucky is like a new-born when they defrost him; he blinks around at them all slowly, eyes adjusting to the brightness of the lab, searching out a familiar face. When he realises Steve’s not there, his expression clouds over, and it’s up to Sam to make apologies for Steve. He’s like a wild animal at first, wary of everything, and Sam aches in familiarity at this. He was the same way, coming back from Afghanistan. After Riley.

 

They keep him out of the tube for two weeks, as T’Challa works on the brain output readings he takes from Bucky; trying to weed out the Hydra programming, trying to piece together the remnant of Bucky Barnes from the rubble of the Winter Soldier.

Sam’s a little wary at first, and who would blame him? This guy ripped the steering wheel out of his car, tore his wings up and threw him across a room by his _face_. But despite his misgivings, after a couple of days he realises he can’t leave the man to deal with the real world alone. He’s slow about it, gradually coaxing him out of the room across the hall, slowly trying to remind the supersoldier that people are good, and people are kind. Just simple routine things, the way Sam knows how to help PTSD sufferers; a routine, a conversation, a short but regular run around the palace grounds. And whilst Bucky doesn’t speak that much, and his expression is usually set in a kind of grim blankness, he starts to look a little brighter.

 

In the end though, T’Challa tells them it’s going to take a lot longer than he thought to figure out the reversal of Bucky’s trigger. If you weren’t looking for it, you wouldn’t see the microscopic way Bucky’s face falls at the news, but Sam does.

Bucky insists on going back into the tube. It’s safer that way, he says, but Sam gets the feeling he’s trying to convince himself more than them. As the tube seals up and the aperture turns opaque with frost, Bucky’s eyes are on him and Sam can't help but feel like they've let him down again.

 

~~~

 

**December 2016**

The second time Bucky comes out of cryo-freeze, Steve stays in the room for less than three minutes.

He stays in the room long enough to check that Bucky’s vital signs are all okay, that he’s Bucky and not the Winter Soldier about to go on a murderous rampage. And then he’s gone, the door banging shut behind him. Bucky’s eyes darken and his face closes up, as though shutters have been pulled across it.

Goddammit. Sam shoots Bucky an apologetic look and hurries after Steve, catching up with him in the corridor. Steve holds his hands up defensively and says;

“Sam, please don’t. I just - I need a few minutes, okay? I can’t do this right now.”

Steve looks guilty and upset and cagey all at once, and Sam decides to just let him do his tortured thing. But Bucky needs someone right now, so he sighs and heads back into the lab, leaving Steve alone in the corridor.

“He doesn’t want to see me, does he?” Bucky asks flatly.

“I have no idea what’s going on with him, man,” Sam sighs, sitting opposite him. “He’ll come around though, I’m sure.”

Bucky mutters something that sounds a lot like “yeah right”, and Sam’s heart tugs a little at the sight of the dejected slope of his shoulders.

 

~~~

 

It takes a couple of weeks to rip out all of the Hydra programming from Bucky’s mind. It’s painful and heavy going, and Sam is honestly kind of surprised to find himself sitting there every day with Bucky, talking him through the process and helping him untangle the real memories of himself.

The worst sessions leave Bucky staring glassy-eyed into the distance, endlessly reliving the horrors he inflicted as the Winter Soldier. It’s the nights after these sessions that no one sleeps; the silence in their small apartment shattered by his tortured shouts. And it’s one of these nights, where Sam shakes Bucky away from a particularly violent nightmare, that he realises he’s seriously under-equipped to help Bucky through this. And there’s only one person who’s been through the same.

 

Steve proves to be difficult to corner. He’s constantly moving; running, pacing, planning, phoning Natasha and negotiating. And Sam is fairly sure he’s actively avoiding everyone too. So in the end, he gets up early one morning and corners Steve just as he’s about to leave on one of the three hour runs that must take him the whole way round Wakanda.

Come on Steve, he needs you. I’ve dealt with PTSD before, but not on this level. He’s dealing with all the shit the Winter Soldier did, but he’s also dealing with massive displacement issues. Don’t you remember being fucked up over the 21st Century?”

“I don’t think Bucky’s experiencing the same thing,” Steve says, trying to push past Sam. “My experience was a whole lot easier than his.”

Sam just stares at Steve in disbelief.

“Steve, dammit, just stop and think for a second. He’s Bucky, he’s your _best friend_. Don’t you think you owe it to him to try and help him?”

Steve stops dead, his expression closing off.

“Don’t you dare tell me what I owe to Bucky. Has it occurred to you that maybe this is really fucking difficult for me? That man is _not_ the Bucky I remember. And me standing there, waiting for Bucky Barnes to reappear isn’t going to help him at all. So just back off, alright?”

And he turns and slams out of the apartment, leaving Sam standing there in confusion.

 

Sam ends up scouring the internet for all the stories he can possibly find about the Howling Commandos and James Buchanan Barnes. He’s pretty sure he knows more about Bucky than the man himself by now. At least this way he can help Bucky sort out which memories are the real ones.

 

~~~

 

Christmas comes around far sooner than any of them are expecting. It’s easy to forget when the festive season in Wakanda is heralded by stifling heat and humidity, and Sam thinks longingly of the bitter temperatures of New York in the snow. Even in Afghanistan the heat had never been this intense.

Unsurprisingly, the festive season brings about low moods for all of them. Sam doesn’t say anything, but he’s noticed Steve’s usual cocktail of antidepressants and anxiety meds has increased. And Bucky’s retreated back inside himself again, becoming even more monosyllabic than normal.

And honestly, the worst thing is the way Christmas always reminds Sam of Riley. It’s been a long time now but carols and snow and stockings and food, it all takes him back to the Christmas of ’07, their first together. They’d been snowed in for three days and when Riley gave him an ever so slightly misshapen, hand-knitted jumper, Sam had fallen for him right then and there.

God, the memory of it is almost enough to send Sam right back to the way he’d been that first year after Riley died. So he starts running and training, and helping Bucky with his physical therapy; anything to keep the demons at bay. His dreams are still fractured and he can still sometimes almost hear Riley, but keeping busy and tiring himself out every day makes it a little less painful.

But still, he knows this would all be a lot easier if the three of them could talk to each other and be friends.

 

~~~

 

The day before Christmas Eve finds Bucky and Sam in the lab once more. This time it’s to fit the new prosthetic arm T’Challa’s designed for Bucky, and Sam is very impressed. It looks just like a real arm, and accordingly has no extra strength beyond that of a normal human arm – something Bucky was adamant about.

Bucky’s sat in the middle of the lab, surrounded by a gaggle of labcoat-wearing scientists and the Wakandan king himself. He looks worried and Sam doesn’t blame him. The process of fitting the new arm apparently involves attaching neural connectors from Bucky’s spine into the arm, and that sounds incredibly painful.

“Okay Mr Barnes, if you could just remove your shirt,” T’Challa tells him, not quite smiling but definitely looking encouraging.

Bucky’s brow furrows and his eyes flicker towards Sam. Sam nods, trying to reassure him, and Bucky sighs before tugging the hem of his tshirt over his head, revealing a torso covered in scars and a metal stump where his left arm should be.

Sam can’t help but stare, half repulsed by what Hydra have done to Bucky over the last seventy years, but also – if he’s being entirely honest with himself – slightly mesmerised by the highly toned and muscled torso before him.

“You know, normally I would at least expect someone to buy me dinner before I got naked in front of them,” Bucky says drily, almost too quiet for Sam to hear.

Busted. Sam chuckles and drags his gaze back up to Bucky’s smirking face.

“Well this is the 21st century my friend, people get naked for less,” he tells Bucky, shaking his thoughts away.

“Do they,” Bucky hums thoughtfully, an eyebrow raised. “I might have to investigate this further.”

He looks at Sam with a curious expression, and Sam wonders what’s going through his mind. But then T’Challa’s scientists are swarming round and hooking Bucky up to machines, and as the first jolt of pain shoots down Bucky’s spine, he flinches and grasps out at Sam, clutching his wrist painfully.

“And you were mocking me for overfamiliarity?” Sam jibes gently.

Bucky smiles thinly through clenched jaw and mutters; “Did I mention I hate you?”

 

~~~

 

It’s easier after that day. An easier familiarity settles over their interactions, and even though Steve is usually absent or silent, Bucky seems to relax into the rhythm of life in Wakanda a little more.

They spend Christmas Day marathoning Friends – essential 21st century viewing in Sam’s opinion – and Bucky immediately falls in love with Chandler’s ridiculousness, something that sets off an entire afternoon of the worst jokes Sam has ever heard. But he lets it slide, because Bucky becomes somehow lighter when he’s smiling, and it’s honestly the most fun he’s had for a long time.

It’s growing dark outside, and Sam can feel his brain beginning to melt from the sheer amount of tv they’ve watched, so he decides to introduce Bucky to some card games. Bucky stares at the pack of cards a little longingly.

“We used to play poker after missions,” he tells Sam. “Steve used to cheat horribly and Gabe would get so angry. One time Steve bet the shield, so we all ganged up against him and won it off him.”

He looks so wistful that Sam decides right then that he isn’t going to let Steve be weird and silent on _Christmas Day_ of all days. So he leaps up and marches straight into Steve’s room, dragging him back out and forcing him into one of the chairs around the table. Bucky looks surprised and wary, and Steve looks completely baffled.

“It’s Christmas Day. We are not going to sit in different rooms and sulk,” Sam tells them both firmly. “We’re going to spend time together and we are going to _enjoy_ it.”

 

They stay up way too late and drink way too much beer, but it almost starts to feel normal between them all, and as Bucky good-naturedly mocks Steve for his cheating, Sam hopes this means everything will get better for them. It’s a far cry from a perfect Christmas, but it’s good enough.


End file.
